Description
Recent research has considered the way multiple nation-states have embraced forms of religious statecraft, or partnerships with religious actors, as a component of their foreign policy. Typically, such efforts are implicitly framed as either the preserve of states with openly religious foreign policy identities, or the result of lobbying by powerful religious constituencies. Less attention, however, has been paid to how ministries of foreign affairs have rationalised greater attention to religion-related foreign policy in line with secular norms. I explore such dynamics by focussing on British foreign policy. Building on Habermas’s calls for postsecular ‘translations’ of religious intuitions into secular language to enter the public sphere, I argue that British foreign policy elites rely on similar translations to enable religious contributions to foreign policy. Religious organisations become non-state actors; religious worldviews become ethical intuitions. Yet I argue further that many of these translations are already provided by Britain’s existing religious-secular order. I consider three cases – Anglican establishment, cultural Christianity, and the interfaith sector – and demonstrate the different forms of religious engagement they enable within British foreign policy.
